Next thing I know, a hoard of knights in tinny armor raise their swords and comes barreling toward us. My heart kicks into gear. Because Riley still stares at the lost arrow, paralyzed, I grab her hand and drag her with me. “Run!”
It takes half a second before she switches into flight mode, and I don’t have to pull so hard on her hand anymore. As we jump over the underbrush, she straps the bow to her back. The weapon out of the way, she finally moves faster, and we have a chance of escaping our pursuers. But with my supersensitive hearing, I realize there’s a whole new problem behind us. Hoofbeats. King Arthur sent his mounted henchmen after us, and they will catch us in less than a minute.
Great! Just what I wished for when I decided to seek out Red Riding Hood here. Becoming a target myself.
Riley runs fast, but her legs are a lot shorter than mine. I could be out of here in three seconds. She can’t.
“Get on my back!” I shout as we reach the beaten track.
“What?”
“Don’t question! Just do it!” I let go of her hand and will the Wolf inside me to the surface. Falling from a two-legged sprint into a four-legged one without missing a beat, I sidle up closer to Riley. A little screech escapes her, but at my nudging on her hip with my flank, she finally catches on. Her frightened hands clasp my fur. Two more steps and she throws herself on top of me, slinging her arms around my neck. I give her another second to straddle my back, then I really accelerate, pounding my paws on the dirt.
Because she keeps me in a terrified chokehold, I’m confident that she won’t get lost if we go cross-country. It’s the only chance we have to outdistance the galloping army closing in on my haunches. As we slip through the bushes and jump over some fallen wood, Riley whimpers in my ear. “By Grimm’s undying soul! Jack, you will kill us.”
No, her lovely King Arthur will kill us. And it’s all her fault. I refuse to be the impressive wolf hide hung on the wall in his cold throne room tonight.
With a good lead on the horsemen, I keep an eye out for a hiding place and skitter to a halt when I spot something like a fox’s den or a badger’s burrow in the roots of a giant cypress tree.
“Why did you stop?” Riley hisses, and it feels like she’s anxiously turning around to look out for our followers.
Because I can’t speak as a wolf, I shake her off my back. With a protesting humph, she lands in the moss. Sniffing the den for residents, I find nothing. There’s no animal in it—probably hasn’t been for several weeks. I hustle Riley toward the entrance, and when she’s finally crouching in front, I push her inside with my snout. Fortunately, the den is big enough for both of us. I crawl in after her, careful that my tail doesn’t stick out when the hooves of the kingmen’s horses tromp past outside.
We huddle together in the darkness and stare out. Riley is shaking like a leaf. Her erratic breaths puff into my ear, which is quite uncomfortable because, so close, it has the power of a wind gust. My ear twitches uncontrollably at each blast.
Well, I’m sure she didn’t imagine that her first encounter with her adorable king would end in a deadly hunt.
After a couple of minutes, the sound of galloping fades away, and no more knights seem to follow. Phew. That was close.
“Do you think they’re gone?” Riley hisses in my ear.
I wasn’t prepared for that. With a tortured yip, I cringe away. Riley jerks, too. And suddenly, her shriek breaks through the den behind me. The little light coming from the entrance is just enough to highlight that she’s falling—or about to.
Zooming after her, I only catch her cloak with my teeth. I have to dig all four paws into the ground to keep from being pulled after her as she dangles in the air. Crap, I have no idea where I maneuvered us but, apparently, this is not a badger’s nest. In the darkness behind us is an abyss, and Riley is hanging over the edge with only my hold on the red fabric keeping her from plummeting to her death.
“Jack! Get me out of here!” she cries in sheer panic, her weight dragging me closer to the edge. I get a glimpse down and, holy twisted hat of the Mad Hatter, the hole must be sixty feet deep. There’s a little coffee table with a peacefully burning candle casting a faint light at the bottom of the abyss. The black-and-white-checkered floor spans the length and width of a tiny, square room with one small door on the left.
Awesome! I guess we found the rabbit’s hole.
“Jaaack! Please!” The shriek assaults my ears. Instinctively, I flatten them.
Oh, right. Red Riding Hood! I start pulling at her cloak until she comes back over the edge. A relieved breath wheezes out of her lungs once she’s safely back on the ground. We should really get out of here. The entrance to Wonderland is not a place to toy with. I lower my muzzle and whine, giving Riley a push with my forehead.
She nods, understanding my hint. On her hands and knees, she crawls out of the den first. Because there’s next to no room in the burrow to move, my snout presses to her skirt-covered bottom. In wolf form? That’s asking for trouble.
As the sweet scent of innocence drifts to my nostrils, my head gets a little woozy. Weird thoughts spring to my mind. I salivate. If there weren’t a dress and her cloak between us, I would probably be lashing out now and stealing a taste of the forbidden apple.
I can barely shake off the urge when Riley disappears from the exit, and sunlight blinds me. For a brief second, I can’t see anything. Heck, where did she go? I need to breathe that fragrance in again. It’s so delicious.
Shaking my head once, I find her standing a couple of feet away from the tree, patting dirt off her cloak. Don’t bother, babe, I like it dirty. I can do nothing about the low growl that rumbles from my throat as I prowl closer to my prey. Heat sizzles through my entire body, raising my hackles and putting all my senses on high-alert. Damn, I need to screw or eat someone. Preferably both, in that particular order.
Riley’s wary gaze finds me and lingers. Right, that’s the perfect mix. Innocence and a dash of fright. She couldn’t tease me any more than this if she tried.
“Jack? Is everything all right?”
It will be, honeydrop, when you bend over for me.
“Could you please stop that?” Her hands flash out defensively, and she stumbles back a few steps until she hits a tree. “You’re scaring me.”
I’m not going to hurt you. My eyes turn to slits as I sneer. Well, not very much.
Body and hands flattened against the trunk behind her, she’s trapped. Nice. A luxurious snarl escapes from between my teeth. I’m really hungry.
“Okay, listen! This is not funny!” The anger in her voice doesn’t override the fear in her eyes. And it sure won’t make me stop. She denied me a decent granny dinner yesterday, so I guess it’s only fair that I swallow Red Riding Hood now instead. She looks much more tender than the old lady anyway. I bet she tastes devilishly good.
Taller than the average wolf, my eyes are at the level of her perfect, apple-shaped breasts when I reach her. Her chest lifts and falls with her anxious breathing. A titillating sight, and a good place to sink my teeth in, but there’s something else drawing me in harder.
I dip my head low and search out the wonderful scent of the sweet innocence between her legs again. Shish kebob or shag? What do I go for? My mouth waters. Would she scream if I tore her clothes off with my teeth right here against the tree?
“Good Grimm! Are you sniffing me?!”
Her outraged voice echoes around us, but I don’t hear what she’s saying anymore. This other part of her speaks to me much louder and clearer. All right, so the shag it is. The thick fur at my nape rises in anticipation. Finally, I have this girl exactly where I’ve always wanted her. At my mercy. And from the tearing hunger still boiling in my veins, cooking my blood, I can no longer promise that I’ll have any patience with her. She’s mine. To take. To play with. And to eat when I’m done with her.